UPDATED Woodland Scenics Tidy Track HO Roto Wheel Cleaner - My Experiences

[kenkal]

Anyone tried this yet? If so, I sincerely hope your experience is better than mine. After waiting quite anxiously for about 7 months of delay after delay, I finally got my unit yesterday. It is a quite simple product and should be quite easy to use.

1. To clean loco wheels all you are told to do is put the loco on the unit's power rails, turn the power on slowly to an unbelievable 1/2 to 3/4 power, and basically manually move the loco back and forth for 10-15 seconds without applying any downward pressure. 

After a couple tries of it doing NOTHING, I looked at it closer. The wheels contact the rails only on their flange edge and will soon file down themselves or the track as it is metal on metal. The wheels NEVER contact the cleaning pads unless you apply the downward pressure you were told NOT to do and even that doesn't help (see following comment #4).

2. The unit's track rails are brass and come dirty and oxidized. The rails are on sort of a platform that can move up and down. The rails are slightly above but almost level with the cleaning pads on one end, about 1/8" higher than the pads in the middle and the other end is below the pads.

3. To clean rolling stock, you put the car on the same rails with power off, press down on the car to contact the pads and manually move the car back and forth for 10 seconds or so. Repeat as necessary to clean the wheels. After about 2 minutes of trying to clean not very dirty wheels, I gave up. Beyond me how rolling the wheels along the pad can be expected to clean them. Crud of any degree needs some measure of abrasion, or at least some liquid, to get it off. They supply scrubbing pads for heavy build up, but I didn't try them as the wheels were definitely not very dirty and had practically no build up of crud.

4. A major problem is the design of the unit allows only the outside wheel treads of the loco and rolling stock wheels to try and be cleaned. The big problem is that most wheels normally ride on the rails at the flange position and the wheel treads are tapered and have less contact with the rails and in fact, the tread edges tend to be outside the rails. The flange area is where the best electrical contact is made and where the most crud accumulates, but unfortunately this unit doesn't clean that area. It looks like, if the unit actually worked as it is supposed to, if you rock the loco side to side as you manually move it along the power rails, you can get closer to the flange, but not quite. But nothing in the brief instructions says to do that.

I have been buying Woodland Scenics products for a lot of years and love their scenery products. I expected better from them. I'm going to call them tomorrow, hoping I just got a bum unit. Unfortunately, it will likely cost me additional shipping to return it to them and that's a bummer since I had to pay $8.95 shipping from Walther's to get it in the first place.

The unit says designed in USA. Great, that's what we need and want. Unfortunately, the old saying goes that a company should keep doing what it does best and not branch into new areas that they aren't familiar with. Apparently Woodland Scenics wasn't aware of that.

And finally, the unit was manufactured in China and we all know what that can mean.

Over the past several months I have talked with Woodland Scenics and they were saying the unit sells out immediately when they get in shipments.  They hadn't expected such demand and have stepped up their ordering.

It sure appears that quality control could be a factor here. I'll find out tomorrow what Woodland Scenics has to say about this.

Ken

ps Please don't consider this a bash on Woodland Scenics.  As I said before, I love their scenery products.  This is only a review of one of their products based on my experience with it.

If anyone here has had a different experience I'd sure love to hear about it.  Thank you.

 

 

[kenkal]

I called Woodland Scenics this morning.

No comments on this post of other modelers having problems with the unit so far likely emphatically confirms Woodland Scenics saying they have had very few issues with the unit and quite a lot of positive feedback.

I discussed each of the issues in the above post with Cathy at Woodland Scenics.  She was very nice, helpful, patient and showed concern. She felt I have a bad unit with a likely warped rail platform. She then gave me an RMA # to return the old unit which UPS will pick up and is shipping me a new one today after having their design dept. check it out to make sure it doesn't have any issues with it.

My disappointment is considerably less than it was this weekend after trying the unit.  Woodland Scenics is bending over backwards to resolve this ASAP and I am very thankful and happy for that. I wish more companies, modeling or not, behaved as responsibly as Woodland Scenics is demonstrating in this issue.

Ken

 

[Motley]

That's good to know, that WS is concerned, and taking care of you. Hope you get a good working unit this time. Let us know what happens.

[Never2manyTrains]

This is the only bad "review" I've come across about the tidy track, especially since everyone seems to be sold out of them. But at least you were able to talk to a human being at WS, and they are taking care of you, for most companies it's easier to win the lottery than talk to a person now an days . Let us know how the new unit fairs when you get it.

[CP5415]

I bought one of these. Great idea & such but it didn't work for some of my locomotives.

I'm not saying it's a bad product, it's just that the wheels on some of my locomotive were in need of some serious cleaning & this didn't cut it.

Had to get out the isopropanol alcohol to clean them.

It's my fault the wheels got to the point where extra cleaning measures were needed.

Gordon

[richhotrain]

kenkal

I called Woodland Scenics this morning.

I discussed each of the issues in the above post with Cathy at Woodland Scenics.   

Hey, maybe I will call Cathy and ask her why Woodland Scenics doesn't sell ground cover and ballast in bulk for larger layouts.

I have enough of those shaker bottles to cover a municipal landfill.

Rich

[dknelson]

I was hoping to see a demo of these units at last year's Trainfest but at least when I was at the booth there was no demo going on.  As regards cleaning freight car wheels, I recall an article decades ago in MR where a guy built a sort of jig -- two blocks of wood the width of track (covered with cloth?) connected with cross pieces that were center attached to a base so that they moved in opposite directions so that the wheels were turning while in contact with the cleaning fluid.   Something along those lines is needed for unpowered wheels to be cleaned it seems to me.

Dave Nelson

[CraigN]

There is a  video of this product at Woodland Scenics website.

I have the N scale version.

I found that I need to run the Loco on paper towels wet with alcohol 1st, And then move it to the Roto wheel cleaner.

As far as doing freight cars, I think the unit is too short. I bang each end of the freight car when running them across the cleaner.

As far as a lot of crud on the wheels goes, I carefully scrape it off with a small jewelers screw driver. Then move it onto the wet paper towels and then onto the Roto wheel cleaner.

The wheels are good and clean when I am done. It is more steps than what I wanted, but the end results are better in the end than if I didn't have the Roto wheel cleaner.

I also fond that it doesn't sit on top of ballasted track too well. I had to use the alligator clips connected to the track for it to be powered.

Overall , I like it, but it could use some improvements.

Craig

[kenkal]

An update to my earlier post:

I received the replacement unit from Woodland Scenics. Came super fast and works much better than the bad one I had. Many thanks to W/S for their quick response. Really great service from them. The platform was not warped as the last one which had likely led to the problems I had. The brass rails were still quite oxidized and dirty though.

Now for my use comments:

The unit does a decent job of cleaning powered loco wheels. However, contrary to their explicit instructions to NOT press down on the loco, I found it does a much more credible job of cleaning if you apply slight pressure while rolling the loco back and forth. A problem still exists with small switchers -- the weight of the loco is NOT enough for the wheels to contact the cleaning pad and I HAD TO press down for the wheels to make contact and once that occurred, the wheels came clean. I must say that my wheels weren't horribly dirty, so the jury is still out on very dirty wheels. I do wonder about the amount of use for the cleaning pads as they you can see them getting dirty after just a few not too dirty locos.

As I feared, using a stationary pad that you roll the non-powered wheels across, without any friction involved, and not using any cleaning fluid, isn't the best way, in my opinion, to clean the wheels. Again, my wheels were not really very dirty. After rolling the car back and forth maybe 20 times, the wheels did seem a little more shiny, but as to why they did, I have no idea.

IMHO:

I will likely use the unit for cleaning powered wheels as it is easy to use for many of my locos and for no other reason, it will help keep the crud from accumulating.

I do think the unit should be somewhat longer though as it doesn't allow much of the cleaning pad to be used for road engines which generally have a longer wheelbase than the switchers and will likely force pad replacement much sooner than necessary because of using only part of the pad.

Many of my steamers won't work well on this unit as I would have to disconnect and remove the tenders so the loco would fit and be able to be moved somewhat back and forth. As anyone who has sound in their equipment knows, this is a real pain.

As I saw quite limited results on the non-powered wheel sets, I doubt I'll use it for those wheels. Too bad. To me, it isn't worth the effort and the proven method of fluid-wetted paper towels across the rails seems to do a much better job.

What we need is a unit from someone, for a reasonable price, that uses power to the loco wheels and something to turn the non-powered wheels. IMHO, it shouldn't be that difficult to do. Maybe a pad that slowly turns or moves back and forth while something turns the wheels? Maybe a pad that moves in one direction on one side of the wheel set and another on the other side moving in the same direction at a slightly different speed to create the necessary friction? A market is there as this is a glaring need for any railroad hobbyist that runs trains and I would think in any popular gauge. There is and will be a market for a good product for a reasonable price, perhaps $100 or less and actually does it’s one and only job -- CLEAN THE WHEELS! Heck, considering what they charge for rail cleaners these days, I’d buy a wheel cleaner that REALLY WORKS for $150 and not bat an eye! The Woodland Scenics cleaner, for its excellent price (especially when you get it on sale as I did), is a reasonable start. Maybe they can upgrade the unit? A Roto Wheel Cleaner II?

As I have said before, I'm very happy with Woodland Scenics as a company. IMHO, they are likely at the top of any list for great customer service and in producing consistent quality products. Ken

 

[Geared Steam]

richhotrain

 

kenkal:

 

I called Woodland Scenics this morning.

I discussed each of the issues in the above post with Cathy at Woodland Scenics.   

 

 

Hey, maybe I will call Cathy and ask her why Woodland Scenics doesn't sell ground cover and ballast in bulk for larger layouts.

I have enough of those shaker bottles to cover a municipal landfill.

Rich

LOL!!!  

[Paul3]

At my club (and on my home layout), we just use papertowel strips that are dampened with alcohol.  Rip the papertowel in strips, apply the alcohol on the papertowel, lay the towel on some powered rail, run the engine over the towel, then hold it in place and spin the wheels.  To me, unless a wheel cleaning system is better than a alcohol-wet papertowel, why buy it?

For non-powered wheels on a steamer, I lay my loco upsidedown in a foam cradle, then rub each non-powered wheel with a q-tip dipped in alcohol until there's no black on the q-tip (spinning the opposite wheel for friction).

For large quantities of freight and passenger cars, we use a Dremel with a flex shaft and use the brass wire wheel (never, ever use the steel wire wheels!).  Do not let the wheelsets spin free.  You must retard the speed of the wheelset by using one's finger or thumb to slow or even stop the wheel from turning.  Otherwise, you'll spin up the wheelset to 6000RPM or so, and usually melt the truck sideframe due to friction.  Another tip: Always wear at least some kind of facemask and safety glasses.  That dirt flys off the car wheel and goes everywhere.  Worse, the dirt gets in your lungs, up your nose, and so on.

Paul A. Cutler III

[rrinker]

 Paul's method is exactly what we use at the club, for some of those locos still using the sintered iron wheels like AThearn BB, sometimes instead of alcohol, we wet the towel with acetone, which is what we run in the Tony's CMX car to clean the track. Yes, it can melt plastic, but unless you spill the can on your loco, there's no problem.

 I clean my rolling stock wheels the same way, although I don;t have a flex shaft on my Dremel. Since we have a full detectiona nd signal systems, it's somewhat important that the wheels have good contact. The difference can be amazing - a brand new wheelset on a car with the resistor attached may only register if I push down hard ont eh car. Turnt he car over, take the wire wheel to the wheel treads, and now it detects with just the car's own weight.

                          --Randy

[Lake]

The paper towel works every time. Is easy, quick and cost almost nothing per engine.